replacing 12v halogens with LEDs?

[Amanda Ripanykhazov]

I have been having severe problems with 12v halogen "spot"lights.

My Satco strip seems to blow its individual internal mini-transformers behind the bulb about every other time the bulb blows. I also have an Ikea fitting supporting three 12v halogen bulbs on which the bulbs dont blow as often but the whole supporting transformer seems to blow every few years.

Much perceived wisdom online seems to date back a few years to the dawn of LED bulbs, when specs (heat? heat dissipation? colour temperature? lumens? current used? etc) were all over the place and I am wondering whether these have settled down yet so that I can just replace the halogens with LED bulbs using similar (or internally adjusted) current? Or does that still entail only buying the most expensive, - eg Philips, - bulbs?

Or if the current or heat draw which causes the el-cheapo transformer in the track lighting units and the Ikea unit to blow is substantially less for LED bulbs, can I render those transformers MORE reliable by putting LEDs in and adding (say) one or two bulbs to the Ikea unit to compensate for the lower current draw?

 

[Amanda Ripanykhazov]

Because of the small dimensions of halogen bulbs compared to hot wire,
much higher probability of plasma arc creation at the point of fauilure
of a bulb, ie near enough full short circuit at the point of blowing, so
collateral damage

Yes, I figured that there was some heat related reason why the halogens were blowing so often and taking the transformers with them and i keep a stock of them in reserve. But can I render those transformers MORE reliable by putting LEDs in and adding (say) one or two bulbs to the (open bulb type) Ikea unit IF I NEED to compensate for the lower current draw? Or is that such an oversimplification that it renders the premise wrong?

 

[N_Cook]

On 13/07/2016 13:49, Amanda Ripanykhazov wrote:

I have been having severe problems with 12v halogen "spot"lights.

My Satco strip seems to blow its individual internal mini-transformers behind the bulb about every other time the bulb blows. I also have an Ikea fitting supporting three 12v halogen bulbs on which the bulbs dont blow as often but the whole supporting transformer seems to blow every few years.

Much perceived wisdom online seems to date back a few years to the dawn of LED bulbs, when specs (heat? heat dissipation? colour temperature? lumens? current used? etc) were all over the place and I am wondering whether these have settled down yet so that I can just replace the halogens with LED bulbs using similar (or internally adjusted) current? Or does that still entail only buying the most expensive, - eg Philips, - bulbs?

Or if the current or heat draw which causes the el-cheapo transformer in the track lighting units and the Ikea unit to blow is substantially less for LED bulbs, can I render those transformers MORE reliable by putting LEDs in and adding (say) one or two bulbs to the Ikea unit to compensate for the lower current draw?

As far as the architectural colouring of LED lamps, ie too blue.
As the lamps push forward little heat , its quite easy to tone down the
blue by overcoating the glass front with thin red,pink,or orange "filter".
Have a go initially with red felt tip pen and then when you get the
right sort of pink/orange chromacity for the room, go to a specialist
artist supply shop/stationers with a good range of acetate/polyester? A4
overlay/cover sheet material and cut out discs and fit over the LED
clusters.
Because of the small dimensions of halogen bulbs compared to hot wire,
much higher probability of plasma arc creation at the point of fauilure
of a bulb, ie near enough full short circuit at the point of blowing, so
collateral damage

 

[whit3rd]

On Wednesday, July 13, 2016 at 8:09:30 AM UTC-7, Amanda Ripanykhazov wrote:

> Yes, I figured that there was some heat related reason why the halogens were blowing so often and taking the transformers with them and i keep a stock of them in reserve. But can I render those transformers MORE reliable by putting LEDs in ...

Mostly, LED replacements will take less current and won't tolerate high temperatures.
That's a problem, because taking less current means the transformer will hum, and halogen
fixtures are designed to keep the lamps hot (for the self-healing filament chemistry to work).

For best results, replace a halogen fixture with an LED fixture. Bulb 'replacement' is really
a kind of redesign, and not optimal from a lighting engineering standpoint.

 

[John Robertson]

On 07/13/2016 6:49 AM, N_Cook wrote:

On 13/07/2016 13:49, Amanda Ripanykhazov wrote:
I have been having severe problems with 12v halogen "spot"lights.

My Satco strip seems to blow its individual internal mini-transformers
behind the bulb about every other time the bulb blows. I also have an
Ikea fitting supporting three 12v halogen bulbs on which the bulbs
dont blow as often but the whole supporting transformer seems to blow
every few years.

Much perceived wisdom online seems to date back a few years to the
dawn of LED bulbs, when specs (heat? heat dissipation? colour
temperature? lumens? current used? etc) were all over the place and I
am wondering whether these have settled down yet so that I can just
replace the halogens with LED bulbs using similar (or internally
adjusted) current? Or does that still entail only buying the most
expensive, - eg Philips, - bulbs?

Or if the current or heat draw which causes the el-cheapo transformer
in the track lighting units and the Ikea unit to blow is substantially
less for LED bulbs, can I render those transformers MORE reliable by
putting LEDs in and adding (say) one or two bulbs to the Ikea unit to
compensate for the lower current draw?


As far as the architectural colouring of LED lamps, ie too blue.
As the lamps push forward little heat , its quite easy to tone down the
blue by overcoating the glass front with thin red,pink,or orange "filter".
Have a go initially with red felt tip pen and then when you get the
right sort of pink/orange chromacity for the room, go to a specialist
artist supply shop/stationers with a good range of acetate/polyester? A4
overlay/cover sheet material and cut out discs and fit over the LED
clusters.
Because of the small dimensions of halogen bulbs compared to hot wire,
much higher probability of plasma arc creation at the point of fauilure
of a bulb, ie near enough full short circuit at the point of blowing, so
collateral damage

Or it could simply be that the design life of the small switching
supplies have reached their planed EOL and the capacitors are failing
taking all the other magic smoke emitting parts with them...

John :-#)#
--
(Please post followups or tech inquiries to the USENET newsgroup)
John's Jukes Ltd. 2343 Main St., Vancouver, BC, Canada V5T 3C9
(604)872-5757 or Fax 872-2010 (Pinballs, Jukes, Video Games)
www.flippers.com
"Old pinballers never die, they just flip out."

 

[Amanda Riphnykhazova]

Thanks guys: The LED vendors (in China) all tout their MR16s as being direct replacements for the MR16 12v halogens

 

[Baron]

On 13/07/2016 13:49, Amanda Ripanykhazov wrote:
I have been having severe problems with 12v halogen "spot"lights.

My Satco strip seems to blow its individual internal
mini-transformers behind the bulb about every other time the bulb
blows. I also have an Ikea fitting supporting three 12v halogen
bulbs on which the bulbs dont blow as often but the whole
supporting transformer seems to blow every few years.

I replaced all the 50W halogen bulbs in my kitchen and bathroom with
240V GU10 LED bulbs. Rip the transformers out and replace the bulb
holder. I bought my LED lamps from "Pound Stretcher" at ÂŁ2.45p each,
and the holders came in packs of ten, about ÂŁ4.00p three years on and
I've yet to replace one. A lot less hassle then having to get the
steps out three or four times a year...

--
Best Regards:
Baron.

 

[Jon Elson]

Amanda Ripanykhazov wrote:

I have been having severe problems with 12v halogen "spot"lights.

My Satco strip seems to blow its individual internal mini-transformers
behind the bulb about every other time the bulb blows. I also have an
Ikea fitting supporting three 12v halogen bulbs on which the bulbs dont
blow as often but the whole supporting transformer seems to blow every few
years.

Much perceived wisdom online seems to date back a few years to the dawn of
LED bulbs, when specs (heat? heat dissipation? colour temperature? lumens?
current used? etc) were all over the place and I am wondering whether
these have settled down yet so that I can just replace the halogens with
LED bulbs using similar (or internally adjusted) current? Or does that
still entail only buying the most expensive, - eg Philips, - bulbs?

Or if the current or heat draw which causes the el-cheapo transformer in
the track lighting units and the Ikea unit to blow is substantially less
for LED bulbs, can I render those transformers MORE reliable by putting
LEDs in and adding (say) one or two bulbs to the Ikea unit to compensate
for the lower current draw?

Can you get LED drop-in replacements for these bulbs?
The Halogen lamps run off constant-voltage AC. the LEDs (internally) run off
constant-current DC. The "bulbs" would need to have a rectifier/regulator
built into them. You certainly can get these for 120 V Edison-base sockets,
not so sure about track lighting systems.

Jon

 

[Amanda Riphnykhazova]

Thanks for that

This was the sort of reason I wanted to change over the bulbs to LED. It should stress the wires and transformers less.

I know the chinese are mass producing m/billions of these mini-circuits for use in the bulbs. I just dont know what they do yet (or which no-name bulbs utilise which circuits): Do they make the bulbs more receptive to DC or rectify the current in some way to compensate for the lower draw?

But it is becoming exceptionally annoying changing these bulbs/transformers all the time. I currently have seven transformers in the strip and 3 are burned ouT! I suppose I would do anything at this point to change them!

 

[jeanyves]

On 2016-07-13 22:10:02 +0000, Amanda Riphnykhazova said:

Thanks guys: The LED vendors (in China) all tout their MR16s as being
direct replacements for the MR16 12v halogens

be aware that the light beam can be very different from a 12v halogen bulb ...
prefer led lamps that are made of smd leds, they have a wider light beam
the lamps that have 3x 1W led have a very directive beam and will
really not shine like your halogen lights.

I also had halogen lights long ago, and replaced with led some years ago.
when I inspect the wires for changing the lights, I noticed that the
original wires where cooked by the heat of the pravious lights... 12v
and 20w or even 50w make the wires really be cooked.

I replaced the wires, and used then GU10 led lamps, and now the current
flowing into the wires is lower than before.

--

Jean-Yves.

 

[Baron]

Amanda Riphnykhazova prodded the keyboard with:

Thanks for that

This was the sort of reason I wanted to change over the bulbs to
LED. It should stress the wires and transformers less.

I know the chinese are mass producing m/billions of these
mini-circuits for use in the bulbs. I just dont know what they do
yet (or which no-name bulbs utilise which circuits): Do they make
the bulbs more receptive to DC or rectify the current in some way to
compensate for the lower draw?

But it is becoming exceptionally annoying changing these
bulbs/transformers all the time. I currently have seven
transformers in the strip and 3 are burned ouT! I suppose I would
do anything at this point to change them!

Those transformers are actually high frequency inverters, about 200Khz
output or there abouts. They actually feed the halogen bulb with the
HF AC. You might find that the 12V MR16 LED doesn't like being fed
from them.

I made the decision to just remove them and feed the replacement LED's
straight from the 50Hz 240V mains. Changing the bulb holders wasn't
a downside because of the heat damage to the wires, though the actual
connector to the transformer was fine. So it was just a matter of
loosening the terminals and transferring the wires from the mains to
the new terminal block, the GU10 bulb holder was already wired into
the other side.

All the new bulbs have 12 SM LED's and are cold white and because the
kitchen and bathroom has a white colour scheme seem much brighter
than the old halogen bulbs. So much so that we now tend to turn on
only half of the 12 lights in the kitchen. The bathroom uses all
six.


--
Best Regards:
Baron.

 

[jeanyves]

On 2016-07-15 06:23:19 +0000, Baron said:

Amanda Riphnykhazova prodded the keyboard with:

Thanks for that

This was the sort of reason I wanted to change over the bulbs to
LED. It should stress the wires and transformers less.

I know the chinese are mass producing m/billions of these
mini-circuits for use in the bulbs. I just dont know what they do
yet (or which no-name bulbs utilise which circuits): Do they make
the bulbs more receptive to DC or rectify the current in some way to
compensate for the lower draw?

But it is becoming exceptionally annoying changing these
bulbs/transformers all the time. I currently have seven
transformers in the strip and 3 are burned ouT! I suppose I would
do anything at this point to change them!

Those transformers are actually high frequency inverters, about 200Khz
output or there abouts. They actually feed the halogen bulb with the
HF AC. You might find that the 12V MR16 LED doesn't like being fed
from them.

I made the decision to just remove them and feed the replacement LED's
straight from the 50Hz 240V mains. Changing the bulb holders wasn't
a downside because of the heat damage to the wires, though the actual
connector to the transformer was fine. So it was just a matter of
loosening the terminals and transferring the wires from the mains to
the new terminal block, the GU10 bulb holder was already wired into
the other side.

All the new bulbs have 12 SM LED's and are cold white and because the
kitchen and bathroom has a white colour scheme seem much brighter
than the old halogen bulbs. So much so that we now tend to turn on
only half of the 12 lights in the kitchen. The bathroom uses all
six.

and forgot to say the GU10 is far more easy to handle than the MR16 ...
I replaced all my ceiling bulbs 5-6 years ago, still none has died for now.
and if one dies, it's easy to find the same and replace it
the only thing will be to struggle with the color of the light to find
something similar to the others
may be I will have to replace a whole room at a time !

--

Jean-Yves.

 

[Amanda Riphnykhazova]

So I wonder what this means on a slightly elderly unit?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/222178377902

 

[Baron]

Amanda Riphnykhazova prodded the keyboard with:

So I wonder what this means on a slightly elderly unit?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/222178377902

Probably a con ! Look at the carriage charge.
--
Best Regards:
Baron.

 

[Amanda Riphnykhazova]

Probably a con ! Look at the carriage charge.
--
Best Regards:
Baron.

But it is exceptionally unwieldy and heavy!

 

[Amanda Riphnykhazova]

Just to close out this thread (for the moment)

As to the Ikea question, Ikea says that any bulb with the proper socket will work.

Secondly, I bought a half dozen bulbs on ebay from China, - the ones described as CREE that claim to have a chipset in them, - and they all seem to work fine.